The Hunt
by jamesssxD
Summary: Ema is knocked out & wakes up in the backwoods with 12 other frightened people with her. 3 armed men infront sound a horn and tell everyone to run, but soon a shotgun is loaded and bullets blast out. Ema finds herself in a hunting game, and she's a player
1. Chapter 1

Ema ran her hands through her hair, pulling away the hairs sticking to her sweaty face due to the boiling sun beaming down on her boiling car. It was summer vacation, and she was driving back home to California with her boyfriend Stuart.

"Want some water?" he asked, before taking a huge gulp himself.

"Don't drink all of it, we need to save some! I have no idea when the next gas station is"

"If worse comes to worse, we'll just drink our pee"

Ema couldn't help but chuckle, "You are so gross, dude"

"Dude? When were we on dude terms?"

"When I was thinking of dumping you after all your pee jokes" she said, turning around and winking at him.

The couple were taking a different route than last time, through the backwoods as they had heard from friends it's much quicker to get home. The quicker the better, as driving in California for so long isn't such a great idea.

"Hey, whose that" Stuart said, pointing out at a man standing on the side of the road, his hand out.

"Hitchhiker... Will I stop?"

"Shit, we can't leave him out in these woods, they go on forever"

Pulling over, Ema rolled down the window and looked up at the hitchhiker who was smiling at her, he had brown hair and brown eyes. Very attractive. "Hey, needing a ride?"

"Yeah, that'd be great!" he replied, jumping in the back of the car as Ema started driving. "Thanks for this, I'm Dane"

"It's fine, so what you doing out in the middle of the woods?" Stuart asked.

"Just looking for a lift home," Dane replied, "Not far from here"

Ema gasped, "You live out in these woods?"

"Yeah, it's only like a five minute ride, me and my family live out here, we're hunters"

"Ooh, wild hunters, what do you hunt?"

"Everything really, anything that moves"

Stuart laughed, "Even people?!"

"I do," Dane said, also laughing.

A sudden silence filled the car as Dane kept on chuckling. Looking out the window, Ema seen two men in the distance, walking towards the car, "That your family?"

"Yeah, that's my dad Ray and brother Garth," he replied. "Thanks for the ride"

Ema began to pull over next to the two men as Dane started to get out, but the older man pulled out a shotgun from behind his back, it all went by in a moment as he smashed the handle against the window, and then against Stuart's head, knocking him unconscious as Dane grabbed a screaming Ema's hair and bashed her head twice off the steering wheel, also knocking her out cold.

/

Her eyes were blurry as she began to wake, the first feeling she felt was a sudden hot flash on her back. She was lying on the road, Stuart awake next to her, trembling and shaking. Around her were ten other people, all laid on the road, looking scared and petrified. She looked up at the three men stood on the road infront, Dane being one of them, he held a bow and arrow in his hand, as his father Ray held a 12 guage shotgun, with the older brother Garth weilding curved blades but handguns in his holsters. Dane had told her he liked to hunt anything that moves, meaning humans, and this was their game.

**The Players: **Ema and Stuart. Family of four, parents Harry and Francine, daughters Claire and Abby. Three friends, Jenny and her best friends Adam and James. And the three loners, Cara, Vanessa and Chris.

Ema watched the men infront of her carefully as Ray pulled out a horn and with a grasp of the ball, a horn blared out that hit the nerves in everyone's ears. "You all get a 10 second head-start, so start running!"

A sudden adrenaline rush flow through the twelve players, Stuart grabbed onto Ema as they fled down the road opposite the men, the other players followed, grouping together with their loved ones. It felt like a second, but the ten second head start had passed, and the sound of Ray cocking his powerful shotgun echoed through the woods. In an instant, he pulled the trigger and a bullet blasted out the barrel, flying through the air and smashing into the back of a running Claire's head, her skull exploded and blood splattered out as she fell forwards onto the road.

"Baby!" her mother, Francine cried. She stopped running and ran back to her daughter but Harry grabbed her hand and urged her to move on as the now family of three dissapeared into the woods. A second gunshot caused everyone to jump, as the next player to fall was Jenny, a bullet hitting her hard on the back of her legs, that instantly weakened as she fell onto the hot road.

"Help me!" she screamed, but Adam and Lucas had already fled into the woods, as had everyone else. Jenny tried to crawl along the road as tears streamed down her face, the pain in her legs excruciating.

"Two down already, we did good this time, right dad?" Dane smirked.

"Very good," Ray replied, "You want this one?"

Jenny looked up at Dane and begged for her life, but he raised his bow and arrow, pulling it back and letting it go, the bow spiralling down on Jenny and penetrating through her face. She too lay dead on the ground, blood spilling from her as Claire's body lay not too far from hers.

/

Still running through the endless woods, Ema began to pant for breathe as Stuart dragged her along, but she felt her legs buckling from underneath her as she had to stop. "I can't run anymore"

"Baby, we have to, they could be near us!"

"I can't fucking run!"

She then sat down on a log to catch her breathe, as a rustling in the trees caused both her and Stuart to panic and shoot their heads to the right, but it was the two other players, Vanessa and Brooke.

"Sorry to scare you, we just don't know where to go or what to do..." Cara whimpered.

"You're staying with us, okay? And we're all going to get out of here" Stuart assured her, confidently.

Vanessa sat down next to Ema before pulling out a satchet of water she had under her top, in the form of a necklace and handing it to her. Ema replied with a smile before taking an energizing gulp of the water, "Thanks"

"So, what's the plan?" Vanessa asked, "Kill these redneck bastards or find an escape route?"

Ema wiped her mouth, "Escape route, but if we manage to do both at the same time, I'm happy with that"

On the look-out, Stuart returned to three ladies. "Alright, let's get moving... It's too dangerous to just sit around"

/

Chris panted and sobbed as he ran through the woods, looking back, left, right, making sure none of the hunters were following him. He seen the other players Adam and Lucas walking through, but didn't stop to be with them, knowing being with others is more dangerous than being alone. A sudden pain shot through his entire body, as he stopped running and let out a roar of pain, looking down to see a beartrap digging in the sides of his leg, each razor stabbed deeply in his flesh.

"Shit, shit" he cried. He grabbed it and tried to pull it free, but the solid metal wasn't budging and just causing him more pain. He heard footsteps behind him and looked over his shoulder, to see the cheeky smile of Garth.

"Hey there" Garth said, excitedly. "My first kill of the game"

"No, please don't... Please" Chris cried

"Got your foot stuck a little, huh?" Garth replied, "Let me get that for you" His smile then changed into a angry face, as he roared and grabbed Chris, pulling him backwards as he was pulled free from the beartrap but with his severed foot still in it. He screamed and cried as blood poured from his stump. "How does that feel?"

Garth pulled out his curved blade and in a quick second, stabbed it through Chris' back as it sliced through his insides and tore out of his chest. Chris stopped screaming as his eyes looked down at the blade, before rolling into the back of his head as he fell forwards and out of the blade, landing with a thud on the ground. Garth chuckled as he raised the blade again and went knife-happy, stabbing him over and over again.

**Players out: **Claire, Jenny, Chris 3/12


	2. Chapter 2

It had felt like hours, but was only minutes since Ema, Stuart, Vanessa and Cara had begun walking through the endless woods, trying to find the road again and also find a way out. The sun was beaming down on them, and Vanessa's pouch of water was to last them and nobody knows how long for.

"So, how'd you get that water anyway?" Cara asked

"I always carry it with me, just incase I get a little thirsty" Vanessa replied, "You want some?"

"I'm ok just now... I'm just too paranoid to take my attention off trying to hear those men, or even see them"

Vanessa sighed, "Being paranoid over it will drive you crazy"

Stuart turned around, "I'm keeping look-out Cara, you don't have to be so nervous"

"But it's my life in the balance here... if those men come, we're just all strangers to one another, no one's going to sacrifice themselves to save another" she replied, "It's really every man for himself"

Ema stopped and looked at her, "Don't think that like, okay? No one else is going to die"

/

She buried her head in her hands and cried, Francine had just lost her daughter, and watched her brains get blown out and fall to the ground dead and she couldn't even do anything to save her. In her arms was Abby, her other teenage daughter who was sobbing also. Harry just sat on a log, pale and shocked.

"I can't believe she's dead..." Abby whimpered.

Nobody replied to her, everyone just sat in silence, which helped them hear the rustle in the bushes, alerting the trio. "Ssssh," Harry whispered, "Don't move". As he, his wife and daughter looked around, they could see nobody around.

"It's probably just a squirrel" Francine said, but as she finished her last word, a sudden force was pushing into her throat, as Dane stood behind her, a line of barbed wire digging deep into her throat as she struggled to get free, but blood was pouring out. Harry grabbed Abby away as in moments, Francine's throat was cut open and she dropped onto the dirt. With their footsteps rushing away, father and daughter never looked back and blocked out the sound of Dane's laughing behind.

/

James and Lucas had been running through the woods since the road, and hadn't stopped. The boys felt guilty for leaving the wounded Jenny behind, and even heard her scream before she was murdered, but just couldn't go back for her, otherwise they'd all die.

"How are we going to get the fuck out of these woods," Lucas sighed, "It's like we're going around in circles"

"We're not, we're going the right way, just all the woods look the same!"

"Fuck man..." Lucas sighed again

He then turned around, to see four people walking a little distance from them, Ema, Vanessa, Cara and Stuart. "Hey look, there's the other people that were on the road"

"Can we trust them?" James asked

"They are in the same situation as us! C'mon", he tapped James and the two began running towards the other four, who seen the duo in the corner of their eyes.

Cara waved her hand for them to go faster, and then the boys reached the four. "You guys ok? You hurt"

"We're fine, just trying to find a way out" James replied

"Just like us then, huh?" Vanessa spoke

Stuart sighed, "Can we just get moving? We don't want to linger around and give those fuckers time to shoot us in the brain"

Ema nudged him, "Don't moan at them Stuart, there just like us... Trying to survive". She then took a step forward as did James and Lucas, her foot touching a patch of grass that caved in, she fell down into a trap, a 10ft pit, accompanied by James and Lucas.

"Shit, you guys ok?" Cara panicked, looking down at the pit gasping.

"Ow, my fucking head..." James groaned, as he had hit it hard off the side. "Get us the hell out of here!"

"We're going to have to find some rope and pull you guys out" Stuart said

"Hurry, please!" Ema pleaded.

/

Stuart, Vanessa and Cara rushed around the forest, looking for a rope or anything that would help carry the trio out of the pit. But as Cara turned a corner, a fist slammed against her face, causing her to fall down and hold her bleeding nose. Above her stood Ray, smirking in delight. He raised his shotgun at her, as his finger went to pull the trigger, Stuart tackled him to the ground, the bullet shooting the ground right next to Cara.

"Shit!" she screamed as Vanessa helped her stand up.

"Yeah, shit" a voice said

The girls turned around and seen Dane, also smirking. He grabbed Vanessa's throat and threw her to the side, before turning his attention to his grunting father who was struggling with Stuart, who was punching him repeatedly in the face. Dane ran over, pulling out a tribal knife from his holster and stabbing it into Stuart's back, who screamed as Dane then kicked his stomach and he fell on the ground.

"Give me that fucking knife!" Ray snapped.

He snatched the knife off his son and sat on a struggling Stuart, raising the knife, he lunged it downwards on his face as the blade tore through his eyesocket, instantly killing him as blood oozed out. Ray wiped his sweaty forehead as Dane looked back at Cara and Vanessa and seen them gone.

/

Trying to grab the dirt, Ema couldn't hold onto anything.

"There's no use doing that, there's no roots here to hold onto" James told her

Lucas grunted, "Where the fuck is your boyfriend? He better not of ditched us!"

"He wouldn't of done that..." Ema replied

"You know him better than we do"

"Yeah, I do, so get your fucking facts right before you speak!" she snapped.

As Lucas just ignored her comment, Ema turned back around, still trying to pull herself up out of the pit.

"How about we give you a boost up?" James suggested, "You stand on our shoulders and pull yourself up.. It could work"

"It will work!" Ema replied.

James and Lucas walked over to her and bent down, as she held onto the mud and put a foot on one of each of their shoulders, as the boys then stood up, making her go further and further up the pit. Her hands then grasped the edge, as after a few grunts, Ema managed to pull herself up out of the pit.

"It worked! Now go find your boyfriend!" Lucas shouted.

But she didn't reply.

"Ema?" James shouted up.

A man's face then peered over the pit, Garth. He held the unconscious Ema in his arms, but as he seen the boys in the pit, he threw her on the ground next to him.

"Shit... shit! Fuck off you asshole!" Lucas screamed

Garth calmly searched through his jacket, before pulling out a small satchet of something. He opened it up and began pouring a liquid down on the pit, that also touched James and Lucas.

"What is that?" Lucas asked

"It's petrol..." James whimpered, he then looked up at Garth, "Don't man! Please!"

But as Garth pulled out a box of matches, both boys looked up at suspense, as Garth lit a match and threw it downwards. James and Lucas threw themselves back as the match hit the grass in the bottom of the pit and flew up in flames. They both screamed as the fire spread quickly and then landed on their petrol-covered skin, setting them a light. Garth watched from above as James and Lucas both burned slowly alive, their painful screams a pleasure to his ears. And as their screams stopped, he grabbed Ema's hair and walked off, dragging her along the ground behind him.

**Players out: **Claire, Jenny, Chris, Francine, Stuart, Lucas, James 7/12


	3. Chapter 3

Ema's eyes shot open, she could see the sky above her going downwards and realized she was moving. A sudden pain hit her scalp as she looked up and seen Garth, his hand clutching her hair and dragging her along the ground.

"Get off me!" she cried

He just kept dragging her along as she tried to grab something and struggled to get free. She then managed to grab a log which caused Garth to jerk and stop instantly, he let go off her hair and turned around angry. Pulling out his curved blades, Garth was about to kill when he was knocked to the side with a thud. Ema looked and seen Harry stood there, his daughter Abby beside him, both of them holding thick logs.

"You ok?" Harry asked

Ema slowly nodded as Harry walked over to Garth, who was beginning to stand up and smacked him again, this time in the face, causing him to hit the ground again. Abby joined in, raising the log and bringing it down on Garth's chest that caused him to heave and gasp for breathe. Abby raised the log again and smacked Garth's skull, again and again as did Harry, two logs hitting Garth's head constantly and hard, caused his skull to cave in, as his brains began to spill out of his cracked open head. Father and daughter stopped their brutal attack, dropping their blooded logs to the ground.

"Thank you..." Ema smiled, standing up.

"What happened to you?" Abby asked

"I can't remember..." Ema replied, holding her head as it ached from when Garth knocked her out cold. "But I have to go back for them!"

"For who?"

"Those guys!", she then looked back at the pit and seen smoke pouring from it. "Oh god..."

"He burned them alive," Harry told her, "He deserved to die"

Abby looked down, "Now only to find the ones that killed Claire & mom"

Ema sighed, "We have to find my boyfriend, Stuart!"

"Listen..." Abby spoke, "We found his body... He's dead"

"W-What?" Ema trembled

"I'm sorry..."

Ema covered her mouth with her hand as she felt her legs shake, she was shocked. Abby and Harry felt uncomfortable as she burst out in tears and fell to the ground, distraught.

/

Hiding behind a bush, Cara and Vanessa sat silent and still, not wanting to attract any attention. "You think they followed us?" Cara asked

"I don't think so... I haven't heard anything" Vanessa replied

Cara bit her nails, nervously. She then heard the voice of a female in the distance, "That must be Ema!", she came out of the bush and was correct, she could see Ema walking along, Harry and Abby beside her. As Vanessa ran out beside Cara, the girls were about to go get the others, when a the sound of a gunshot echoed in their ears and they seen Harry drop to the ground in the distance.

/

"Dad!" Abby cried, wiping his splattered blood off of her. She bent down to him but the bullet had hit him in the back of his neck, killing him. Ema looked around but could see no one,

"Abby, we have to go before they shoot us!"

"No... My dad... He's all I have left"

Ema then seen Cara and Vanessa in the distance and grabbed Abby, "C'mon! We have to go!", she dragged Abby away from Harry as the girls ran off from the scene.

The four girls had reached one another, in a panic.

"Are we all that's left?" Vanessa asked

Ema nodded, "James and Lucas are dead.. so's Stuart.."

"Oh god," Cara whimpered, "Let's just keep moving!"

She and Abby took a couple of steps, before their ankles tightened and they found themselves screaming upside down, about 30feet from the ground, a rope attatched to each of their left ankles, that was tied around a tree trunk above them.

"Oh fuck! No, no!" Cara cried

Ema and Vanessa stood on the ground, looking up in shock.

"We have to get down before they come and kill us!" Cara said

Abby just sat there and stared in the distance.

"Fuck! Say something" Cara snapped

"I am..." Abby replied, she then pulled out a blade from her jeans. "I took this from that fucker... I'll cut my rope down, it'll fall to the ground and yours will rise up, you grab the tree trunk and you'll be safe to climb down"

"But if you cut the rope.. You'll die"

"I've got nothing left to live for... my whole family's been killed by these bastards! Just promise me, you'll kill them"

"I promise" Cara replied

Abby then began cutting her rope, and with a last smile at Cara, her rope was cut and she grabbed the hanging part above her, causing her to fall down the 30ft drop with the rope, head first, and as she hit the ground, her head hit it hard and her neck snapped, killing her. Cara was being pulled up and grabbed the tree trunk, safe and alive. She looked down and seen Abby's corpse lay awkwardly on the ground.

/

Down on the ground, Cara shed a tear as she hugged Ema and Vanessa. "I can't believe she killed herself to save me". A gunshot echoed through the woods again as a bullet hit the tree that Cara had just climbed down. The girls screamed and ran through the forest, through the first opening they had seen, that took them to a cliff that was over the Californian ocean.

"Shit, dead end!" Ema sighed

"Well, for you two" Vanessa replied

"Huh?" Ema asked

She and Cara looked at her as she took a couple of steps away from them, and the figure of Ray came out of the woods behind her, aiming his shotgun at the girls. "Just on time, baby" Vanessa smiled

"What the fuck, Vanessa?" Cara asked

"What?" Vanessa chuckled, "How could I resist a hot man like this? So yeah, you've been hanging with the enemy this whole time"

Ema shook her head, "You fucking bitch!"

"Kill 'em," she told Ray.

He raised his gun at them and shot a bullet, but Ema pushed Cara to the left as she jumped to the right. Ema ran up and tackled Vanessa to the ground, as Ray's attention was turned to her, he aimed the shotgun at her but Cara leaped up, holding the curved blade that Abby cut the rope with. She leaped at Ray and stabbed the blade deep into his spine, the curve causing his spine to split. Ray dropped his shotgun as Cara then stabbed him once more, over and over as he slowly fell to the ground, dead. With his shotgun on the ground, Ema punched Vanessa in the cliff's edge direction and picked up the shotgun.

"Kill 'em," Cara said, imitating Vanessa.

Vanessa gasped as Ema pulled the trigger, blasting a bullet right in her chest, the force causing Vanessa to go flying off the edge off the cliff, tumbling down hundreds of feet and landing with a hard plummet in the ocean, dissapearing in the current.

/

Running around for hours in the boiling sun, while panic of being murdered, tired out Cara and Ema. The two girls were now walking down a path that was attatched to the cliff, taking them to a beach.

"Is that a ranger's station?" Ema asked, pointing at a small shack.

"I think it is..."

The two girls reached the shack and walked in, their first sight was a sink, where they quickly turned the tap on and were estatic to find it had cold running water. While drinking that, Ema then noticed a phone with a thick signal cord attatched to it.

"So, where do you think the ranger is?" Cara asked

"No idea..." Ema replied, "But he's left his phone"

She picked up the phone and heard a dial tone and quickly called 991,

"Hello this is the operator, what is your call?" a voice asked

"I'm on a small beach in the backwoods of California, me and my friend, there has been four killers hunting us and another ten people who are all dead... There is one killer left and we really need help before he kills us!" Ema quickly told her.

"Calm down," the operator replied. "Your on Hunton beach... We will send a helicopter to you, just try and hide out for now!"

"Thank you, thank you" Ema replied.

Cara looked confused, "What's going on?"

"They're sending a helicopter to come pick us up!" Ema grinned

She then could smell an stench and sniffed in, and immedietaly smelled gas. She grabbed Cara as the two girls ran out of the shack door back onto the beach, just in time as moments later the shack exploded in flames. To the left, stood Dane, who threw his satchel of petrol to the ground. Without a word, he raised his bow and arrow and plucked an arrow that spun through the air and landed in Cara's chest, stabbing through and coming out her back, the force causing her to hit the ground.

"NO!" Ema screamed, raising her shotgun at Dane who raised his bow and arrow once more at her. The two stared at one another, their weapons aimed directly at each other.

"Nice gun, where'd you get that from?" Dane asked

"Your dead dad"

"What?" Dane asked

Ema smiled, "That's right.. your dad's dead, as is that bitch Vanessa, and your ugly fucking brother... Your the only one left, Dane"

"And so are you, Ema"

"Well, makes it fair then, right?"

"Right"

"I bet it sucks, huh?" Ema asked, "Not to have all the power in your hands"

Dane smiled, "I have had with the 134 people I've killed"

"You fucker..."

She then pulled the trigger as Dane plucked the arrow, Ema jumped in the air, knowing the arrow would hit her, and as it stabbed through her hip instead of her head, her bullet hit Dane in the chest and he fell back. Landing firmly on her feet, Ema sprinted towards him and quickly aimed the gun at Dane, blasting him in the head as his blood and brains splattered onto the sand. Ema dropped the shotgun and stumbled back, hearing the sound of a helicopter in the distance.

"Ema... Help..." Cara asked

Ema turned to Cara who was trying to stand up on her feet. She helped her up, Cara had survived but with a bow and arrow through her chest and back.

"Is it over?" Cara asked

Ema smiled and looked at the arriving helicopter, "It's over..."


End file.
